The treaty of Ramesses II with the Hittites: the oldest peace treaty

In the twenty-first year of Ramesses II, 1259 BCE, the Hittite king Hattusili III sends to Egypt a silver tablet with the text of a treaty; the reply tablet goes to Hattusa. The silver has not survived, but the Egyptian text is carved on the walls of Karnak and the Ramesseum, and the Hittite one was found at Hattusa on clay tablets in Akkadian—and the two agree. The parties swear eternal peace, promise to help each other against enemy and rebel, to hand over fugitives but not to punish them; a thousand gods of both lands are called as witnesses. The dispute over Syria and Canaan, running since Thutmose III, is closed: the border runs through northern Syria, and Canaan remains Egypt’s. Thirteen years later Ramesses marries a Hittite princess. This is the oldest peace treaty to have come down to us; a copy hangs in the United Nations building in New York.